Among all literary styles, poetry is the one with the earliest origin and the longest history. Literary works such as prose and novels must rely on written records to spread, but the earliest poetry was created orally by people and spread by word of mouth, without relying on words. For example, the poems written by the people of the Song Dynasty who built cities in the Song Dynasty and satirized the Hua Yuan Dynasty recorded in "Zuo Zhuan" were composed orally, and those people were illiterate. Of course, this is not the earliest poetry. The earliest poetry can be traced back to primitive society. The origin of poetry is related to labor. There is this record in the classic book "Huainanzi·Dao Yingxun" of the Western Han Dynasty:
Nowadays, when a man lifts a big tree, he calls out "Xie Xu" in front of him, and the latter also responds. This is also a song of persuasion for lifting weights. .
Many people carried the big log together, shouting chants to coordinate everyone's pace and encourage everyone to contribute. The chants were very rhythmic. If you add something informative and interesting to the chant, it becomes original poetry. Lu Xun once called this kind of labor chant shouting "Hang Yu Hang Yu" the earliest poetry, and humorously said that this is the "Hang Yu Hang Yu" school. In addition, the origin of poetry is also related to religion and entertainment. The ancient book "Lu's Spring and Autumn Period·Ancient Music Chapter" records:
For the music of the Xigetian family, three people played the oxtail and sang eight pieces.
The Getian clan is a legendary ancient tribe. Their religious and entertainment activity is for three people to hold an ox tail, dance and sing at the same time, and the song has eight paragraphs. The lyrics of the song have not been handed down, but from the titles of "Xuanniao", "Suicaomu" and "Fenwugu" recorded in the same book, it is inferred that the content is about totem worship, myths and legends and agricultural production. In ancient times, there was a saying that "the black bird gave birth to Shang". The Shang people regarded the "black bird" (swallow) as their totem. The "black bird" here may be a similar myth and legend. "Grains" and "grains" are obviously related to animal husbandry and agriculture. These lyrics are primitive poetry, but they do not exist independently, but are combined with music and dance. This situation can still be seen among some primitive peoples in the world today. Poetry first broke away from dance, and then gradually broke away from tunes, becoming poetry that was recited and read, but still retained musicality, that is, rhythm and rhyme. Poetry is also called "poetry", which explains its relationship with music.
It is not clear when and what the earliest Chinese poetry originated due to insufficient evidence. The "Wuyue Spring and Autumn Annals" of the Eastern Han Dynasty records an ancient ballad:
The broken bamboos will be replaced, and the flying earth will chase away the corpses.
"卍" is the word for "meat". It basically says: cut down the bamboo to make a slingshot, and use it to launch clay projectiles to hunt animals. It is said that this is a ballad from the Huangdi era, but it cannot be proven. It is of ancient origin and is credible. In addition, there are some fragmentary sentences of ancient songs in ancient books, the authenticity of which is difficult to distinguish and of little research value. Fortunately, as early as the 6th century BC, my country compiled the first collection of poems, the Book of Songs, which had a huge impact on the development of poetry in later generations. It is actually the source of Chinese poetry.